The water is boiled, add the pasta and cook, until they're al dente. Easy, isn't it? Pasta dishes can be so tempting - incredibly light, incredibly delicious - but they can also be thick and sticky.
Whether it's baked lasagna, pasta salad or a plate of spaghetti paired with plain pesto - there are subtleties you need to know to make the perfect pasta. One of them is how much water is used to boil pasta and spaghetti?
When it comes to proper pasta preparation, there are many nuances, which can affect the taste and texture of the final dish.
1. Measure the pasta
If you have a kitchen scale, weigh the pasta first. Measure about 100 to 125 grams per person if you are going to serve pasta as a main dish and 75 grams per person if you are serving it as an appetizer.
2. Boil water
Use about 4 liters of water for every 450 g of pasta. Usually, the more pasta you cook, the more water you should use.
3. Add salt
We recommend salting the water after it has started to boil and adding the pasta just before. If you add salt too early, the water will evaporate, which will make the water saltier. Usually the ratio is 2 tablespoons of salt per 4 liters of water. Salted water flavors the pasta. The generous amount of salt in the water flavors the pasta from the inside as it absorbs the liquid and swells.
To prevent the pasta from sticking, stir during the first minutes of cooking. This is the crucial moment when the surface of the water is covered with sticky and glue-like starch. If you don't stir, the spaghetti or pasta will touch each other and they will stick.
And to use what you've learned about cooking spaghetti and pasta, check out these delicious recipes and choose one for dinner tonight:
- spaghetti Carbonara;
- baked pasta.
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